Veritas
by Dark Eyed Seer
Summary: Wilson's finally had enough and he, the former ducklings and Cuddy get all the answers from House they ever wanted. So why aren't they happier about it?
1. Chapter 1

**(Author's Note: House's real issues will probably never be explored on the show. He has to keep suffering there so we can watch it. This was my answer when I asked myself what could mould a man like House. Because House IS fundamentally a good man. I see it and I think everyone else does or we would care about him so very much.**

**So what if I intervene and create my own universe where though he still suffers, he no longer does it alone. For that, the issues need addressing. So here's my best attempt at House as a character study, almost entirely in Wilson's POV for some reason and a situation where House can actually talk about himself (something NOT easy to do, you try it and make him not all OOC, I dare you!**

**Enough babbling. Reviews are worshiped and given scripture status, don't you want to be a saint in my private religion?**

Wilson couldn't remember a time he was angrier at House.

He knew logically that being angry at what was really bordering on a suicidal gesture was not the way to deal with it.

But he'd had enough.

While House was lying unconscious in a hospital bed after nearly electrocuting himself, Wilson made a beeline to his office.

He'd never told House about this, it was a private fascination. He'd ordered it off the internet and realized now that he'd always meant to use it.

James Wilson was going to get some answers even if he had to force them.

XXXXX

Cameron and Chase were talking to Cuddy outside of House's room. Foreman lurked in the background trying to look utterly unmoved. Whenever House did ANYTHING his former fellows couldn't keep themselves from running directly to his side. He had the same effect on Wilson. Damn him.

Wilson stalked down the corridor, his heart pounding. But his grip on the tiny bottle was firm.

"He's going to need painkillers. You should see his hand." Cameron said tiredly and Wilson felt a fresh rush of anger. House always did this. He made the people around him worry and panic all the time.

"Oh, he'll get them." Wilson nodded sharply, morphine would add to the pliability, "But that's not all I'm going to give him."

"Maybe you should ease up a bit." This was Chase, taking the House-friendly ground. An acute survival mechanism no doubt purposefully instilled in him over the years of his fellowship.

"I'm not going to yell. I'm going to ask questions." Wilson handed a confused looking Cuddy his vial.

"Sodium Panthenol…" And she drew in a sharp breath.

"Truth Serum? Where did you get Truth Serum?" Foreman was certainly a part of the conversation now.

"Ordered it, I was feeling nostalgic or something."

"For what, the Cold War?" Cameron arched an eyebrow. A clear Houseism if he ever saw one.

"I used to read spy thrillers. Anyway, I'll give him the morphine and just slip in a little extra. He won't remember a thing afterward."

"I can't believe I'm listening to this conversation." Cuddy stated, gesturing to House's closed door, "Your best friend is lying in a hospital bed and you want to interrogate him with chemicals?"

"It's the only way! You can never get him to be completely honest otherwise! This way he literally can't lie. He'll be honest about something to me for once. You can't say he wouldn't do the same thing if he had the option. Some patient that won't tell the truth, if I had told him about this I wouldn't still have it."

Cuddy was staring at the closed door.

"You KNOW you want answers, too." He looked at Cameron, Chase, and Foreman each individually for a few seconds, "You all deserve answers. He owes us!"

"You're SURE he won't remember anything?" Chase said also staring at the closed door.

"He won't. He can't." Wilson asserted, "This won't hurt him at all. He'll talk for an hour or two then go to sleep and what he doesn't know won't hurt him."

"What you mean is that what he doesn't know won't hurt _us_." Foreman nodded, "I say we do it. If we can get just one thing out of this to make dealing with him easier, I say we do it."

They went in, closed and locked the door.

House would be coming around very soon. Wilson eyed the monitors and positioned himself next to the IV rack. Cuddy handed him the morphine dose and stood nearby. Cameron and Chase sat on the bed nearest to House and Foreman took one of the visitor's chairs and pulled it in.

House made a sound and everyone jumped. Christ, we're all on a razor's edge, Wilson thought. It made sense, if House ever found out about this he could make their lives a living hell. And this time it would be justified.

He steeled himself as House opened his eyes and looked up at him. The normally devastating gaze was fogged with pain and confusion. This made the colour of them lighter and gave them a green shade, oddly enough.

He was used to House's eyes and they did change colour depending on a variety of circumstances. Wilson knew logically it was merely how his eyes were made, the way they hit the light and what chemicals created a pupil response, but it was a very fey characteristic and Wilson had always been fascinated by it.

"Now that you're up, try to stay up and I can give you some morphine." Wilson picked up the IV line and couldn't help noticing that House didn't even watch him. This was almost too easy. He pushed the morphine and then quickly, the sodium panthenol. As his thumb delivered the blow he experienced a sharp flash of doubt.

Of course this is easy for him to do. House _trusts_ him.

But it's too late now and Wilson watched the fluid travel through the line and into House's blood stream.

Cameron lets out an audible breath and House opens his eyes again to roll them at her, Wilson notes the signs that the painkillers are already taking effect.

"It was just an experiment. There's no need to get all worked up about it." House mutters.

"Experiment! You jammed a knife into a light socket, House." Foreman shook his head, "What is WRONG with you?"

House blinked at him and Wilson felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up, House's eyes were black the pupils were so dilated. He was under.

"You mean, you don't know?" House asked, now sounding confused, "I thought you knew. Thought you just didn't care. But I thought you figured it out."

Foreman leaned in closer, intensity pouring off him, "I'm obviously not as smart as you."

"But- but you're a neurologist…" House looked absolutely bewildered, Wilson suddenly hated himself.

"What is it? What's wrong?" Cameron now, she was practically leaning off the bed.

"Bipolar disorder."

Wilson legs nearly gave out. Cuddy's actually did. She staggered back into the other chair and nearly missed it.

Foreman looked like someone had hit him in the back of the head with a brick.

Wilson felt like he'd spent the last fifteen years of their friendship staring at three inches of a massive puzzle and suddenly it had zoomed out and he could see the entire thing.

House was still talking, the serum pushing the words from his mouth.

"Took me a long time to figure out. It's harder when it's in your own head." He confided to Foreman, but his gaze passed right through the other man.

Foreman nodded dumbly, Wilson could actually see him putting the pieces together, because this, this explained EVERYTHING. He looked over at the mirrored expressions on the others and could see them doing it, too.

Each one of them drawing on memories and finding the moments where House's behaviour couldn't be described as anything other than crazy.

Manic Depression was a horrible affliction, next to schizophrenia it was practically the definition of madness. Manic phases where a kind of frenzy took over that couldn't be denied, impulses became actions and thoughts got twisted into barely recognizable knots.

And then the inevitable fall into a depression so black and absolute that one in seven sufferers die from it. All of them try to at some point anyway, they can't help it.

And the cycling, sometimes rapid enough that it rotates multiple times in a single day, other times months of mania are swallowed into more months of depression. Nothing approaching a normal life is really possible.

Suffers try though, they are often brilliant actors and experts and hiding their affliction. Until they lose control again.

Wilson got a lovely mental image of House punching Chase in the face.

On his Psych rotation during his residency, Wilson heard one woman describe this as hell on earth. A hell NO ONE understands unless they've been there.

"Cuddy can't know, though." House said apropos of nothing and obviously failing to take in her presence in the room.

"Why?" Cuddy asked, her voice was choked and thin.

"Can't take the pills. They make me stupid. Well, not stupid. Just _normal_. Can't solve the puzzle if you don't have all the pieces. I always have all the pieces. And Wilson!"

Wilson jumped, but quickly realised House had forgotten about him, too.

"Wilson can't know. He already tried to drug me up."

Well didn't that just feel like a stab in the chest.

"Sometimes I wish I was like you." House was looking at Foreman now, his eyes were filled with real affection, "I think I'd be like you if I wasn't crazy."

Great, now even Foreman looked about to cry.

Wilson could sympathize, he was there already just thinking about how many ugly things he'd thought about his best friend over the years. And all about things he had no control over.

"Maybe we could find a treatment that wouldn't affect you so much." Cuddy began hesitantly.

"Tried. Tried Lithium and all the anticonvulsants and the antipsychotics. Tried acupuncture, yoga, a ketonetic diet, even ECT didn't work."

"You tried electroshock?" Cuddy asked incredulously. Though, considering what brought them to his bedside in the first place, Wilson couldn't imagine why she felt that way.

"Twice. Well, three times now." House had a sort of smirk on his face that contained more contentment than anything else, "We'll see how this goes when the morphine wears off. Maybe I'll be cured!"

Then his face fell and he stared off into space, "I don't know where I end and the disorder begins."

XXXXX

**(Author's Note: Oh, yes there will be blood… O.K, maybe something that makes me sound less crazy: there's more.**

**Way, way more.**


	2. Chapter 2

Wilson let out a shaky breath and walked around the bed to sit on the end, ever mindful of not jostling House's bad leg, "Well, that's easy," he said trying for humour, "I'm pretty sure the part of you that hits on Cuddy isn't crazy."

He was immensely relieved when House smirked in that mellow way and retorted, "Nope, that part's in full working order."

"Why don't you like seeing your parents?"

Although it was a question Wilson himself had asked House on numerous occasions and got a different, equally ridiculous answer every time, he couldn't help but a hate Cameron in that moment.

Because there was no mellow smirk now and he was staring at something he was obviously seeing in his mind. It didn't look… pleasant.

"I love my mother." House's voice was almost sulky, as if insisting on some point they were all denying him, "Even when she- she didn't know. She couldn't have known all of it. He always took me into the jungle."

Wilson felt cold suddenly, "What did he take you into the jungle for?"

"Training."

It was an innocuous enough word; people were trained for all kinds of things. But there was something in his tone of voice, something dark and painful and it made Wilson's jaw clench, "What kind of training?"

"The Marine kind. The only kind. Drill, lots and lots of drill."

Wilson relaxed a bit, "Well, that had to suck."

House didn't seem to hear him, "I had to do sit ups until he told me to stop. But he never told me to stop. He'd just wait until I couldn't move anymore, or until I tore a muscle. Have you ever torn a stomach muscle? THAT sucks.

And this one time, we were in the Congo so I must have been six or seven-"

Someone made a choking noise, Wilson belatedly realised it had actually come from his own lips. He'd been listening with abject horror when House described callisthenics from hell, but until that moment he had thought 'teenager' not 'small child'.

"He left me in the clearing, told me not to move. He was gone a long time. I wasn't scared. I had my machete, everyone had one there. You needed it to get through the underbrush.

I heard something, voices, but they were speaking Spanish, not Lingala or Kikongo. Not that hearing other languages was odd. You could walk the hundred miles to Brazzaville and hear sixty different languages. But Spanish was weird. French, you heard all the time. Belgians. Pseudo-French bastards

There was a group of men moving through the brush towards me. They weren't black and that startled me a bit. As far as I knew my parents and I were the only whites anywhere nearby and had been for over a year. I was so used to it, seeing them was a shock.

I recognized the man in front. He was on a wanted poster in the military base in Komono.

They were more surprised to see me than anything else. I didn't speak Spanish then, but I could understand it and I could speak French so I managed to talk directly to him and warn him about my father.

He thanked me and they slipped into the jungle as if they had never been there at all. I was half convinced I imagined it. I'd listened to him on my wireless making speeches, he was as close to a hero as I ever had and I got to speak to him."

"Who?" Chase asked, clearly riveted.

"Ernesto Guevara de la Serna." The name rolled off House's tongue with the ease of a native speaker.

"Che Guevara, the Cuban revolutionary?" Cuddy asked.

"He was from Argentina," House retorted, "He died less than a year later in Bolivia. They cut off his fingers so they could ID the body without dragging it out. I never had another hero and I sure as hell never told my father."

Wilson really hated to ask but now was really the only time, "What else did your father do to you?"

House was gazing off into the distance again, "What didn't he do to me? It was war, me and him, ever since I learned how to talk. He had a cane and a strap, but he really preferred his fists. He cracked all the ribs on one side once when I knocked over some survey blueprints. Not hard to do, he always wore combat boots. They were always so perfectly polished. I remember I could see my face in them right before he kicked me.

He broke my fingers when I wouldn't let go of this fossil I found, it was big and heavy and he wouldn't let me take it with us. He just grabbed them and…" At this House demonstrated the little twisting gesture that looked positively excruciating.

"He broke my arm with a shovel when I was eight. I did… something. Probably something bad, I was a bad kid. It was in Egypt and I spent the next six weeks in a library in Cairo learning everything there was to know about mummification.

I talked back, I got knocked around. It happens to a lot of people.

I hated the cold though. I hated the ice treatment and sleeping outside. I wasn't used to it. I was born in the Indiana but I hadn't ever been back on American soil since. We were in South Africa for the first three years of my life and then the Congo, then Kenya, then Egypt, Israel, Thailand, Indonesia, Japan and Australia. I'd never been really cold before.

But this made my father crazy, that I could still be so weak after all he'd done to make me tough enough to be his son.

Alaska was hard. I learned not to complain. I HATED the ice treatment. You- don't tell Cuddy but I'll do just about anything not to do those again.

I was eleven or twelve, no one wants to be stripped by their father ever, but it's awful at twelve. He'd make the water so cold it burned." House broke off.

Up until now, the voice House had been using was almost impassive, utterly without emotion, but something about the cold clearly affected him more somehow.

Wilson realised he'd been sitting absolutely still and moving was strange now, "Where- where did you go after Alaska?"

"Peru, then Brazil, then Trinidad and Jamaica."

"You said you were in Australia, where?" This was Chase, obviously curious as to how House managed to constantly dismiss his homeland but had apparently actually lived there.

"New South Wales, right on the coast. I spent the better part of the year in the water, surfing or spear fishing. My mother was convinced I'd been eaten by a shark. Of course, I actually saw that happen once so she wasn't very far off."

"A shark?" Wilson prodded with morbid curiosity.

House nodded, it looked a bit drunken, "A skin diver. He wasn't actually _eaten, _just some of him. Tiger shark, pretty gruesome. That much blood stays in the water for longer than you'd think. I was surfing but I went home right after that and so did everyone else. The beach was clear for days but we all went back. Stupid to stay away really, the odds were on our side."

Wilson did some figuring, if he'd been in Australia before Alaska, "You were ten or eleven, right?"

Another drunken nod, the drugs were obviously starting to get to him more.

There was just so much ground they could cover if he asked the right questions. Wilson's hands had always been tied when he tried to help House because he actually knew very little about his friend before med school.

"Did you have any friends when you were a kid?" He settled on what was hopefully a less traumatic subject.

XXXXX


	3. Chapter 3

"Are you kidding? I was the only kid with a soccer ball and a rifle, I was drowning in friends." House replied, sounding a bit more animated, "My father didn't believe in toys but he started arming me when I was five. Had a twelve gauge by the time I was ten."

"So you never had trouble making friends?" Wilson asked, clearly surprised. House, however, was too drugged to produce mock offence.

"Not in Africa. Didn't know I was different until Israel."

"Different, you mean the mood swings or…" Wilson led.

"Too smart. A freak."

Everyone blinked collectively at the sudden vehemence.

"I didn't go to school until then. I didn't know the other kids were slower than I was. I didn't know that knowing everything was a bad thing.

Before I was just that white kid. Sure I was weird, all white kids are weird. But I talked like they did and dressed like they did and played what they did. I guess they didn't care if I gave the odd botany lesson or zoological observation.

But in Israel I was in a classroom. I didn't know I shouldn't show off, where I was from if you could do something you did it.

And the other kids were competitive and it drove them crazy that I didn't need to study. And it was even worse in Japan. After Israel I didn't really have friends for a long time."

"What was Israel like?" Wilson asked, feeling the need to connect this somehow to himself. As if his Jewishness could help him understand House better now.

"Scary. People in this country like to blather on about terrorists, they have no idea what their talking about.

Later they called it The War of Attrition. It wasn't the Palestinians for once it was the Egyptians. I had just been in Egypt and some of the other boys seemed to be convinced I was an enemy spy. They were always hunting me but I was smarter and faster.

We were right on the border, too. There were skirmishes and explosions. I don't think I slept at all the entire six months we were there. You were just always afraid. The bus could blow up any moment or a tank attack could come through and destroy the apartments. There were bullets lodged in the wall in front of my school.

I'd been afraid before. Of my father, of Mobutu's men, of the Belgian factory owners that my friends told horror stories about. But nothing had ever been quite that visceral. It was a war zone. My mother cried every day. My father would belt me for absolutely no reason and I, I was out of control. Something about the fear made me seek it out. I was always running off. Lucky I never stepped on a landmine.

I missed Africa. I missed it more in Alaska than anywhere else, but I always miss it. Guess I just spent so much of my childhood there I left something behind. Or took something with me. Or both."

"You said you could talk like they did, how many languages do you speak?" This was Cuddy, Wilson wasn't surprised. House had revealed he spoke perfect Spanish when her contractor fell off the roof and she been fixated on that piece of information since.

"What? Now? English, French, Afrikaans…" House squinted, it must be getting hard to concentrate, "Lingala, Kikongo, Swahili, Bantu, Urdu…"

Cameron had begun hastily scribbling this down on a prescription pad.

"Arabic, Hebrew, Japanese, some Mandarin and Cantonese, some Indonesian and Javanese, Spanish, Portuguese, Latin, Greek, and German. Oh, and BSL but not ASL. Not that it makes a big difference. I spent a lot of time learning ancient Egyptian and hieroglyphics. Never found much use for it, though."

Wilson tried to picture what it must have been like to be constantly expected to adapt to a new country, often a new continent, a new culture and language. It had probably been his young age and extraordinary intelligence that allowed House to manage as well as he had. No wonder he hates change so much now, Wilson thought, early overexposure.

Cuddy had a look on her face that clearly said she would find a way to take advantage of this information. Wilson wasn't opposed to that exactly, just worried that Housewould find out she had this information. And wonder how she got it.

"I didn't wear shoes until I was about eight. I had them and I think I put them once or twice. But I never wore them. No one did, except my father and his men."

House was speaking more and more non sequitur; the remarks were no longer taking the story form.

"I saw Bob Marley at a concert in Kingston in 1976. He, his wife and his _manager _were shot about two days before in some kind of home invasion, but he went on as scheduled. There were always armed robberies going on then, kidnappings and ransom. Very exciting reading, not much fun to witness."

"How was the concert?"

"As so 'im tan. A pyur sufferation inna gwaan inna ghetto, see it? 'Im be rockas ragga mos def. But 'im so ginnal…" House's sudden Jamaican Patois made them all start, he trailed off though and Wilson thought me must have finally fallen unconscious.

But he opened his eyes again, "Lambsbread, that's what they called the good stuff. I smoked a lot of it."

Wilson grinned and shook his head.

"What's your I.Q?" Chase asked suddenly and Wilson drew in a sharp breath. He'd ALWAYS wanted to know this information but had never had the nerve to ask.

But House just looked slightly sleepy and perplexed, "Don't know. Never took a test."

"Why not?" Chase blurted out, saying exactly what they were all thinking. House was the smartest per in any room, how had he never measured the incredible intellect he so obviously exuded?

"Don't believe in the tests. I know I'm smart, some arbitrary number based on some standardized test results isn't going to tell me anything."

Chase's expression, slightly gawping though it was, expressed Wilson's internal feelings. Medicine was an intellectual field and everyone in it revelled in their own cleverness (however deluded they may be) and I.Q. tests were very popular conversation pieces in med school.

Wilson did brag about his own score of 149 one drunken night, as he recalled. Everyone did sooner or later. Except House apparently, who could probably shame them all.

He estimated most doctors to be somewhere in the 130 to 150 range, it was a field that attracted the intelligent. But House had never found someone Wilson could call a peer. In fact, Wilson didn't recall ever _meeting _anyone as blindingly brilliant as House.

He suddenly recalled something he'd read once about geniuses finding it incredibly difficult to interact with someone significantly below their level. Everyone was below House's level.

If he could somehow trick House into getting his I.Q. tested, that could be another piece of the puzzle. Differential Diagnosis was House's favourite method, but he had taught them well.

He was jarred out of his plotting by Foreman's question.

"Why did you fire us?"

XXXXX


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Notes: I stumbled across the most bizarre debate the other day. It seems some people are convinced that Hugh Laurie eyes aren't real. I know. I'm blinking in much the same way I do whenever I hear George Bush speak.**

**I guess it's because he doesn't have breasts to question the validity of.**

**Anyway, since this makes me end sentences in prepositions I thought I would address this weird fixation. Its true Hugh Laurie's eyes are unusually lovely, but they are most certainly not altered in anyway I can see (not even with alleged **_**prosthetic eyes.**_** Seriously seek help, people) I have watched these eyes in the Cambridge Footlights Revue, A Bit of Fry and Laurie, Jeeves & Wooster, numerous special appearances and of course, House, M.D. They do look quite different depending on the lighting used in the shot and what colours he's often wearing. Sometimes they are the piercing, startling blue we are so familiar with on House, other times they look almost gray or even green. I think on House they've taken to playing them up as much as possible which most likely led to such attention.**

**His TEETH, however, have been professionally straightened, but his eyes are all Hugh.**

**Anyway, enough fan girlish obsessive rambling.**

"I told you, you've already learned everything you can from me. You, you couldn't wait to leave.

Why do you care anyway? You have free will again, go forth and be fruitful even. But don't multiply. Please."

Foreman displayed a finely honed resistance to all things House which, to Wilson, was not restricted to criticism and constant disturbingly accurate observations of everything under the sun and moon. It also included the need to appear unamused when something often hysterically funny is said or done.

His silence was really ideal, because House elaborated.

"I worry how much damage I'm doing. I have to damage to teach, but there's a breaking point I can cross. If I don't make you do things, if I don't MAKE you think in different ways you'll end up being the kind of doctors hospitals everywhere are filled with.

They're drones just repeating everything they've been taught, they don't think for themselves they don't take the risks that make the difference.

I had to find the raw material to work with and I did. I found people with the spark, the drive, the mind that it takes. I insulted them, I made them work harder than they ever had in their lives, I forced them kicking and screaming to SEE that things are just not as they've been led to believe. People lie, they lie all the time. Disease does not follow theses stupid polite social conventions and if you follow them you can't do anything.

Something can always be done.

But the trouble is, when my work pays off, I can't always be in the state to appreciate it. I hit Chase-"House broke off and Wilson's eyes snapped to his face. The sight of tears nearly set him off himself.

"I didn't mean to- I don't want to be like- He HAD it, he made the connections I've been teaching them to make and I HIT HIM!"

Wilson cast his eyes to Chase. The younger doctor was white faced and hugging himself fiercely, one perfect tear meandered down his cheek.

"I do these things, say these things. Sometimes its fun, most times I can't stop it anyway so you may as well enjoy the ride, right? But then I- I can't pick and choose. Whatever comes out comes out.

People should get as far away from me as they possibly can. I cling to who I love and it destroys them. I think it's too late for Wilson. But Chase and Cameron and Foreman, they can still have a chance to get away. How can I not tell them to run, even though I want them there, want them with me because I know them and love them and they're so familiar and soothing sometimes… but I'm so selfish and it just- You have to run and stay away so I don't- I look at people and I just KNOW the thing that would hurt them most and I USE it. I'm so sorry. I'm always so sorry."

Listening to House's voice crack, watching him cry, this entire day had been nothing but emotional bombshells. Wilson thought nothing could possibly compare to what he'd already heard.

He was wrong, Jesus Christ, he was so wrong.

He felt the sob tear its way from his throat and made no effort to subdue it.

No one else seemed to, either.

"And Cameron," House began.

Wilson saw Cameron snap to attention, wiping her eyes.

"I just- I KNOW what she needs and I wish to God I could give it to her. But I'm not good for her. I just hope she figures it out someday, that it isn't that she isn't perfect, and smart, and beautiful. It's that I'm so very messed up.

And Chase, Christ when his father was here I wanted to rip him to pieces because he never once saw what he had. He has this great gift and he never once appreciated it. If he was just half as proud of Chase as I am maybe he wouldn't have left, lied and left. The stupid son of a bitch."

Wilson heard Chase's choke sob dimly in the background.

"And Foreman. He thinks he'll turn into me. Unless he can somehow contract mental illness, it's not likely. But it's important he thinks that, it keeps him on guard. He's my watchdog. I suppose it good he's sticking around. He misses things still. But everyday I can see it, everyday he gets a bit closer. Someday he's going to be a force to reckon with and I hope I live to see it.

Mostly I don't want what happened to Cuddy to happen to any of them."

Predictably this made Cuddy herself exclaim, "What? What happened to me?"

"Are you kidding? A brilliant doctor wasting herself and all her gifts in administration? Nothing is worse than that. Cuddy is something special, she always has been I knew it the minute I met her. Now she just hides behind a desk and gives me a hard time.

That's what achievement does to you, children. It gives you this goal, something like 'Dean of Medicine at thirty-five' and because she can do it, she does. Well that's just great if you don't think of it as it really is. Stifling bureaucratic BS. You lose sight of the fight that way, you divide it into battles and you totally miss the actual WAR."

Wilson watched Cuddy's stunned reaction and a line from Milton's _Paradise Lost _suddenly came into his head. Because he felt, and could tell she did as well, _how awful goodness is._

House in his total honestly was a force of good. The trouble is real goodness is often terrible and heartbreaking. And you can't see it at the time. You can't see that it IS truth because to hear it hurts so very much.

"Sometimes I want to tell Cuddy this, but I never do it the right way. I usually end up screaming at her and then she just shuts down and I can't make her see-

I run to Wilson like a beaten animal sometimes. I use him to feel better because he's like a tranquilizer for me. He's just so calm sometimes it's enough, it can pull me down from whatever precipice I'm staring into. But he's been divorced three times and I'm probably to blame. Sometimes I think he's my real addiction because he can make the same state of… contentment come. The thing I've always wanted."

XXXXX


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's Notes: Unfortunately this can't go on forever, both because the drugs (the names of which I have to fix now. It's Sodium Pentothal, goddammit! Well, now we know why I failed chemistry.) just don't last long enough, and because House needs to maintain **_**some **_**mystery.**

**I'm already planning the sequel which will be called A Conspiracy of Kindness. I think from the title you can guess what it will be about.**

**Anyway, since so many episodes have theme songs on House, the theme music for Veritas is 'Outside' by Staind. I can almost picture him singing it. So, for very slightly deeper understanding of my little story you should download it illegally or something.**

Wilson thought of saying many things at that point. All of which he discarded as useless. House would neither believe him nor even remember the words at all. No, now was not the time. But that didn't matter because there _would _be a time. There just had to be.

"How- how much pain are you in on the average day?" Wilson pushed out finally.

"Five or six."

Wilson let out a breath, well there it was. House was consistently in enough pain on a daily basis to interfere with basic tasks and concentration. And I denied it, he thought, he said it was hurting and I told him he just wanted the pills.

"How was it today?" Cameron asked.

"Eight."

Wilson closed his eyes.

"Last night it was a tenner. I couldn't move. I couldn't think. I could barely breathe. Those days, Vicodin does exactly squat. Sometimes mainlining morphine doesn't even help."

Wilson bit into the side of his fist.

"People who don't have pain- they don't understand that it NEVER stops. The worst pain you've ever had in your life, all the time, no one gets that. Everything just becomes defined by how much you hurt right now. You can't think of the future, you can't think of the past. You're stuck in an eternity of suffering that no one cares about. You can't eat, you can't sleep. You can't do anything but hurt."

Wilson and Cuddy stared at one another in a kind of mutual misery. They were both thinking of the same time periods, that stupid, destructive _bet _and the fallout of Tritter. She was clenching her own fists. Wilson absently noted he'd actually broken the skin of his.

"Maybe it's good no one gets it." House's voice sounded dreamy and almost whimsical, "I don't want them to have to know what it's like. Isn't that funny? I hurl just about everything else at people, but pain, real pain… that's something I don't want them to understand."

Wilson buried his face in his hands.

"I used to be better. Things were easier when I could run. I'd just get all fired up so I'd take off and do laps around the hospital for a few hours. Or I'd get Wilson to play ball with me. I can't do that anymore. I get up and pace but it hurts and it's not enough. Sometimes nothing moves fast enough."

He was talking about mania again. Wilson tried to picture his mind going a mile a minute. When House had drugged him back and used amphetamines, he had gotten a taste of what mania was like.

He wondered now if House had been trying to show him, trying to get him to figure it out. But he'd been able to get up and move. He couldn't picture being in that state and cane bound.

"It's been forty years." House muttered, Wilson could tell he was slipping under, "Forty years and I still expect to wake up there. I can still taste the quinine at the back of my throat. I keep expecting to hear the racket the jungle makes at night. The sky here is so small… Hapana! Nisaidie, tafadhali! Unakwenda wapi? Tafadhali!"

Out of the blue, House's eyes snapped open. They were the devastating blue they usually were again but he clearly wasn't lucid. He looked directly into Wilson's eyes, with an almost panicked expression that faded nearly as soon as it appeared, "Nyoka."

Wilson watched his eyes close and saw his face relax even more into sleep. He looked fifteen years younger when he was sleeping, most likely the absence of pain more than anything else.

Cameron shifted slightly on the other bed and he almost jumped. He'd actually forgotten for a moment that anyone else was in the room.

He looked down at his hands and watched them shake, fascinated. Adrenaline poisoning, he could feel the telltale ache in his stomach, too, now that he thought about it.

They all just stared blankly at one another and Wilson completely lost all sense of time.

We're actually in shock, he thought, shivering a bit as if his body had to prove it now that his mind had caught up.

His face was itchy and stiff where the tears were still drying.

It was actually Cameron who ended up breaking the silence.

"So we finally got one over on House," Her voice was first strained and actually broke, "Yay."

Silence.

"I just realised," This was Chase, "I just realised we were wrong."

"Just NOW?" Foreman asked slamming his fist on the bed's frame.

"No, I mean- Of course about this- I mean about- When Wilson said House would do this. He wouldn't."

Cuddy broke in now and her voice was utterly without expression, "No, he wouldn't. He loves the process of figuring people out. This wouldn't even occur to him."

Wilson had two simultaneous conflicting thoughts. The term _doublethink_ crossed his mind. He'd probably heard it from House. He wanted to get out of this room as fast as he possibly could and stay here by House's bed side until he was awake and House again.

Things are never going to be the same but nothing is going to change.

"I literally can't move." Chase remarked after another period of silence that could have been either ten minutes or two hours.

"People are going to wonder where we are." Cuddy added after another long silence.

No one said anything until Wilson asked suddenly, "What did he call me?"

Chase, who was probably the best at picking out nuances due to his ex-pate status, repeated, "Nyoka."

Cameron stiffly pulled out her Blackberry.

"Oh, here it is. It's Swahili…" And the small piece of technology slipped from her fingers. Chase caught it before it could hit the floor. Wilson was very impressed with his reflexes. Right now just about anything thrown would hit him in the face.

His stomach twisted, "What is it?"

Chase stared at the screen for a few maddening seconds, "It means 'snake'.

XXXXX


	6. Chapter 6

Wilson had panicked at first. Obviously some part of House's mind had figured out what was going on. But then he remembered the amnesia attributed to the sodium pentothal and calmed down a bit.

The earlier electric shock would also cause short term memory loss. And morphine was known for making people unable to remember things clearly afterward.

No, House would never remember this. But he had figured it out. Drugged to the gills and recovering from trauma and he figured it out.

Wilson wiped cold sweat from his forehead. That was…House. Wilson was actually beginning to think they'd all been seriously _underestimating_ House's intelligence.

"You know one thing about House," Cameron began, "It's weird but I think I remember every single word of every single thing I've ever heard him say. It's like his voice is operating on a different frequency from everyone else's. No matter where you are, no matter what else is going on or who's talking, if he opens his mouth EVERYBODY listens. And then what he says just gets permanently etched into your head."

"All the better to haunt you with, I suppose." Wilson added.

"I used to… keep this notebook. I'd write down everything he said because he just had some great lines, you know? But then I realised I didn't need to write it down. It does just stick with you for some reason." Chase flushed a bit when Foreman had rolled his eyes about the notebook.

"Wow, Wilson. You've known him for so much longer so your head must be pretty full." Cameron pointed out.

Wilson nodded, just glad the tension had finally broken.

"I want to see his I.Q. score." Chase remarked.

"What? You think you can compare them and see how much farther you have to go?" Cameron asked.

"Uh, I think the 'Being Like House' ship has sailed, Cameron. I think he's pretty much out of our league."

Foreman straightened suddenly in his seat, "That's it."

After a moment, Cuddy raised an eyebrow, "If you don't mind elaborating, Doctor Foreman?"

"Maybe that's how we can help him."

Wilson shifted closer, "You want to be MORE like House? I thought you left-"

"Not like him in every way. Just- O.K. Look, House is some kind of super genius but he does have blind spots. I think it the manic depression that creates them, but we can use them."

Cuddy stood up, "Alright. My office. We need to talk."

She was suddenly all business, everyone got up on slightly shaky legs and made to follow. But Cuddy bent down over House for a moment checking his IV lines and looking at the monitors.

Wilson waited at the door. He heard her sigh and fix the blankets, then she ruffled House's hair with her fingers and kissed his forehead. She whispered something but he was too far away to hear it.

She blushed a bit when she reached the door and finally saw him.

"Don't worry about it. Five bucks says Cameron does the same thing the minute she gets out of your office."

Cuddy smirked, "Ten bucks says so does _Chase_."

XXXXX

"O.K. This is not going to be easy." Foreman began, "If you can't handle it you should probably take off now."

No one dignified that with a comment.

"Like I said. He has blind spots, I've seen them! We can use them to get around any suspicious activity."

"So this is how we help him? By going behind his back?" Cameron asked still looking peaky.

"Cameron, we have to help the guy and this is the only way we can do it. He doesn't know we're helping him so he can't reject it."

"How can we 'secretly' help him?" She shot back.

"When he's manic, he snaps at people who are just too slow, not thinking fast enough, and not moving fast enough. He's flying high. We need to direct the mania but we need to make it feel like we're on the same level and running at the same speed."

"That's going to take a lot more coffee." Chase injected.

"I'll increase the Diagnostic lunch room budget," Cuddy waved it away, "Anything at this point! We need to do something and I just don't know what to do."

"We play with him." Foreman supplied.

Everyone blinked.

"Everything is a game to House, so we make a new game. We play the game when he's manic and it keeps him engaged and challenged. If he's engaged and challenged he'll be less disruptive because he won't be wondering around all the time looking for someone or something to play with."

"That could work." Cameron said suddenly as they were all mulling it over, "I mean, I did notice once when I was all hypercaffinated- er, House switched the coffee in the break room to decaf without telling anyone and like a month later switched it to espresso- anyway, so I was bouncing off the walls. He was really UP that day and we started talking a mile a minute about the case we were on and it was like I was suddenly in his groove or something."

"O.K. I'm not approving this if it means we're all permanent caffeine or amphetamine addicts." Cuddy interjected.

"Just a little more coffee and a whole lot of switching off. I mean, there are five of us, right?" Chase remarked.

"So how are we supposed to keep him 'challenged and engaged'?" Wilson asked.

Foreman paused to think, "We are at a distinct disadvantage. House is smarter, a lot smarter. We have to be beyond careful. But what if we use his advantage in the game itself?"

"You mean make a game where House outsmarts everyone? Foreman, that's not a game, that's life." Chase rolled his eyes.

"We make a bet." Cuddy said suddenly, "House can't resist a bet."

"House can't resist a bet because House always wins. We're back to conclusion A." Chase chimed back.

"Hey, stop being Mr. Negativity, this could work!" Cameron picked up a blank legal pad from Cuddy's desk and pulled out some markers, "O.K, we know he's probably going to win. So what? If we can keep him challenged and engaged and also have some semblance of a social life it's worth forking over some spare change."

Cameron wrote GREGORY HOUSE on the center of the yellow foolscap, "Now, differential diagnosis, what are the underlying conditions?"

Wilson rubbed his hands together, "Bipolar Disorder, obviously-"

"This is a hospital FULL of doctors and specialists, how exactly has no one figured this out before?" Cuddy broke in.

"I- I have no excuse. Now that I look back he was screaming 'Red Flag!' so many times that just got written off as his usual bad behaviour. Of course, the usual bad behaviour… Christ. If it makes anyone feel better, I feel incredibly stupid now." Foreman rubbed the back of his neck. The brain was his specialty; he obviously felt the burden of responsibility.

"Hah! You think you feel stupid? I've been his best friend for fifteen years. Fifteen years seeing him every day, playing sports with him, running with him, drinking with him and not once in that time did I ever stop and think, 'hey, maybe when he calls me to go for a run at three a.m. he's not just being a jerk. Maybe he can't sleep because his mind is on overload and he doesn't want to be alone."

Wilson dropped his eyes, "He stopped calling a long time ago. Even House gives up after a while. And now he can't even run anymore."

Everyone was quiet for a few moments and Cameron added BIPOLAR/MANIC DEPRESSION and drew a little connecting arrow to GREGORY HOUSE.

"Post Traumatic Stress Disorder's a possibility, isn't it? Some of the things he said were pretty bad." Chase contributed.

"I think I read something somewhere about people with higher intelligence being isolated from society because of it." Wilson suggested.

"Oh, yeah, completely." Cameron agreed, "I mean, he must get so frustrated. He always has to explain everything. And sometimes he has to explain the explanations. And WE are supposed to be the intellectual elite. Imagine what dealing with regular people is like."

"So, we're thinking a bet." Chase confirmed, "Like a 'how smart are you really?' kind of bet?"

"That could actually work." Wilson's mind was finally waking up from its trauma induced stupor, "He'll see it as some need to surpass the teacher or, like Cameron thought Chase was doing earlier, to compare and see how far away the goal is. The point is he'll find beating us a lot of fun. As dangerous as a fun having House is, I have to say it's the only thing that will keep it going. And the money. He has to win something or it's not a real game to him."

"So we have to make a bet. We're trying to find something he can't do. If he can't do something, he forfeits something minor, but if he wins it goes into the jackpot. He has to beat us by completing all of the challenges. The game ends when we run out of challenges and he gets the pot." Foreman was scribbling on his own legal pad now.

"Isn't he going to get suspicious about why we're all hanging around him and placing bets?" Chase asked.

Everyone looked forlorn until Wilson shook his head, "No, that's the beauty of it! He gave us a huge reason today to be hanging around. We're worried he might be depressed, maybe even suicidal. He'll probably even indulge us a few times because he thinks we'll lose interest. It's a perfect opening."

"We have to start slow. I'll challenge him to a chess game." Chase offered.

When no response was forthcoming he got a bit defensive, "What? I'm good at chess! I was captain of the chess club at the seminary."

"Alright, chess first. Everyone start studying. We have to genuinely put up the best fight we can or it won't be a challenge at all." Cuddy tapped her pen.

"We should avoid doing things all at once, though, shouldn't we? I mean he'll notice." Chase pointed out.

"Well, he does love a captive audience when he's manic. It probably wouldn't bother him at all then. That's just a reason to show off. It's when he depressed that we have to watch it. If we overwhelm him he'll bolt." Wilson stared absently at the GREG HOUSE on the paper and doodled a little stethoscope underneath.

"That's the insidious thing about it. He shouldn't be alone, probably deep down doesn't want to be alone, but it's like he feels he HAS to be." Cuddy muttered and added a little cane under House's name on her side.

"We all need to do some reading." Chase added, "I don't understand this half as well as I need to."

Cuddy slapped down the pen, "Alright, let's recap so we're all on the same page. We need to help Doctor House. It's going to be long, and hard, and we might not even succeed. We need to do this without his knowledge and without raising his suspicions. We need to study his pathology and treat what we can the best way we can. We have to be consistent; House doesn't trust easily, if you fail him once he may never approach you again."

"That is, of course, if we can get him to approach in the first place." Cameron added, "Wilson, he actually seeks you out, what's the secret?"

"I wish I knew. Um, I started seeking him out first, I think. But he was the one who introduced himself. I guess we became friends because I pushed it, I went looking for him after and before shifts, invited him over on the weekends… though, after I got married he invited me to his place. He never liked Karen. Or Bonnie. Or even Julie for that matter. And they HATED him."

"Did House really break up your marriages?" Chase asked incredulously.

"No, God, no. He didn't help but they were already broken, trust me. I'd be sitting at some mind numbing dinner party about to drown myself in the bisque and he'd page me. I'd excuse myself, hoping for an emergency, and call him back. I'd tell my wife I was needed at the hospital and take off. House and I would play pool, or go bowling, or… once we went bungee jumping.

The point is, I was already unhappy and feeling trapped. All he did was release me and make me aware of it. I can't be mad at him for that."

Wilson was glad everyone tactfully avoided mentioning his affairs. House wasn't to blame for those either.

"So," Cuddy continued, "If any of you have any doubts about sticking this through you should say so now. We understand if it's too much, it's above and beyond the call of duty for Chase and Cameron. So if you aren't going to be able to handle this, don't start it. If we want to establish trust we can't have someone jump ship halfway through."

They all examined one another as if looking for the weak link.

Only calm, determined faces and unwavering eyes met his gaze.

"So we're all in this for the long haul." Cuddy confirmed reaching over for the legal pad. Chase, Cameron, and Foreman had added a guitar, a ball, and a motorcycle to the doodle collection near the prominent name.

The phone on the desk rang and Cuddy picked it up with a practiced headshake.

"He's waking up."

Wilson got up and pulled on his lab coat, "I'll go give him Hell for nearly frying himself. Cameron can come in a bit later and give him the concerned yet sarcastic routine. Foreman shouldn't bring it up at all; instead he should hound him a bit and stay at his heels. Chase, tomorrow you can ask for your game. There, that all fits his little mental profile of everyone."

He paused in the doorway, "We CAN do this, you know. A group of people actively caring about him and his well being, refusing to back down and be scared away. He'll never even see it coming."

XXXXX

**Author's Notes: This is, unfortunately the last chapter. The sequel is already running around in my brain, though, so it shouldn't be long. As I mentioned before, it will be called 'A Conspiracy of Kindness' and I think I might play around with the POVs a bit, I'm not sure. If you are against or for this, tell me about it in a review. **

**Do you think I entire thing should be Chase's POV, or Cameron's? Shall I switch amongst all five? Or do you love Wilson to death and just want his mental voice?**

**In any case, now is the time to thank my lovely reviewers, I write only for you. Well, you and the voices in my head but I don't need to type it out for **_**them.**_


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